The Philotic Knight's Buff Force Fields 1.0!

[_NOPE_]

The "other layer" for me, was always the soft control. And in my extensive experience, It works pretty darn good. I suspect that most players that don't enjoy the force fields current playstyle are looking for something different... perhaps some sort of "passive buff-bot" that follows you around, buffs you and blasts? That's never how I played. I've always been in the thick of it, knocking enemies up and down and all around. It makes for a very dynamic playstyle.

[Galaxy Brain]

Then why not add a 3rd layer so that Controllers with /FF have stuff too? 😄 

[Blackfeather]

29 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Then why not add a 3rd layer so that Controllers with /FF have stuff too? 😄 

As nice as Absorb as a mechanic might be, I didn't think it necessary - I actually really enjoyed the stuff that Force Field brought to the table as a Controller. The kind of control that Force Field has is different to what most Controllers have.

 

Positional and knockdown/knockback powers aren't really that big of a thing (outside of exceptions, such as Jolting Chain and Wormhole). Having a reliable way of turtling in Personal Force Field is great as well, especially if you've realised you've bitten off more than you can control.

 

In terms of the things I wanted out of the set, it was pretty much to do more with what it had, if that makes sense; more flexibility with how Force Bubble could be applied, a stronger magnitude on Detention Field to actually hold down big threats (and maybe cancel it early if need be), and so on.

 

In terms of "things to buff first", I'd say new mechanics aren't that much of a priority, even if they might be a pleasant thing to implement. It's more pie in the sky for me compared to other changes suggested (increased damage on Force Bolt/Repulsion Bomb, and so on). So it's pretty much "cool idea, but I'd want other things first".

[gameboy1234]

1 hour ago, The Philotic Knight said:

The "other layer" for me, was always the soft control.

I think this is a good point.  For me (Bots/FF) FF is just so darn passive.  And that's because the only good powers back on live were the strictly defensive ones, the controls in FF kinda sucked for one reason or another.  Fixing the control powers would be a first step I think (and sounds like they're already part way there).  An absorb mechanic might be cool but I'd like to see a plan to fix the set first, then see where we're at.  If all sets converge around one or two ideas (Absorb or -Res) then all sets are fundamentally the same, and I don't think that's a good thing.

 

[Galaxy Brain]

Only one other set has absorb tho, being nature which is all about healing and not preventing damage like FF.

[_NOPE_]

And it makes sense, because Absorb basically *IS* healing... it's just "preventative healing". The more we talk about it, the more I think Absorb doesn't make sense for FF. Now Defense Debuff protection, on the other hand...

[oedipus_tex]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Only one other set has absorb tho, being nature which is all about healing and not preventing damage like FF.

 

The Absorb mechanic was new when the plug was pulled on the game, so it was never proliferated to other sets. I thought I remembered the developers talking about adding it to Force Field but can't be sure. Thematically it always made sense to me anyway. I actually find the objection to it surprising, but there are all kinds of players. In any case I never read Absorb as about healing.

 

Absorb currently exists in several of the Blaster secondaries. Temporal and Ice are examples. In those sets the power is definitely about preventing and not healing damage, because the power is distinguished from the Heal/Regen versions of the power that do heal you. Low intensity, fast reapplication Absorb serves as a hit point barrier that typically deals well with DoTs and slow damage but does little to deter alpha strikes. A Blaster with Temporal Manipulation can stand in a small fire and take no damage at all, then die instantly from a tankswipe.

[_NOPE_]

A Defender with Personal Force Field can stand in a mob full of Freakshow Tanks swiping, and take no damage at all. 😛

[oedipus_tex]

1 minute ago, The Philotic Knight said:

A Defender with Personal Force Field can stand in a mob full of Freakshow Tanks swiping, and take no damage at all. 😛

 

In fairness, so can a Blaster, because PFF is available in their tertiary pools. 

[Galaxy Brain]

Absorb if its constantly reapplied is far less like healing than it is a preventative barrier to damage.

 

If you say, constantly refresh 100pts of absorb every 3 seconds, then for every bit if damage that comes in within those windows you subtract 100 from since if it hit you it has to eat through that layer first.

 

If we apply the same logic to the force fields, hits that get through the defense of the FF still get negated by the FF to a degree.

[Blackfeather]

3 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

In fairness, so can a Blaster, because PFF is available in their tertiary pools. 

Which is thanks to them taking a Force Field power - it seems to me like Force Fields in general then are designed around absolute mitigation, rather than a 'barrier to chip away at' like Absorption is. But of course, since complete and total mitigation doesn't work in a game where there's at least some stakes, defense is the best representation of it: that is to say, completely blocking any damage.

 

I'm not too interested in discussing whether or not it'd be thematic for Force Field to take on a new mechanic though. Clearly there's plenty of opposing views on that. I don't see it as a priority, especially when there's a matter of actually addressing the pain points in the powerset, rather than looking at reworks to it in the first place. Once those quality of life changes are established and made consensus, then I think would be the time to discuss additional mechanics.

[Galaxy Brain]

If it gets soft control and damage, then it has to compete with storm and control powers, which normally it would stand out against with its defense.

 

Given the meta where most people have tons of defense, adding another mitigation layer thematic to FFs only in how it could potentially be constantly present would let it be much more unique while still retaining the same flavor atop the defense.

 

FF doesnt offer absolute protection where RNG can get through it, refreshing absorb does just this by saying X amount of damage cannot harm me.

[Blackfeather]

7 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

If it gets soft control and damage, then it has to compete with storm and control powers, which normally it would stand out against with its defense.

 

Given the meta where most people have tons of defense, adding another mitigation layer thematic to FFs only in how it could potentially be constantly present would let it be much more unique while still retaining the same flavor atop the defense.

 

FF doesnt offer absolute protection where RNG can get through it, refreshing absorb does just this by saying X amount of damage cannot harm me.

I know, but defense is basically the closest thing to absolute mitigation in a game that kind of has to involve damage: you either take it or you don't. Again, this is just discussion over interpretation, so I don't think this really is going to go anywhere.

 

I do take objection to the suggestion that Storm Summoning and the Control powers currently compete with what Force Field does though, in terms of soft control. They most definitely play very differently; so why not address Force Field as it currently is first, before looking at additions to the set?

[oedipus_tex]

49 minutes ago, Blackfeather said:

Which is thanks to them taking a Force Field power - it seems to me like Force Fields in general then are designed around absolute mitigation, rather than a 'barrier to chip away at' like Absorption is. But of course, since complete and total mitigation doesn't work in a game where there's at least some stakes, defense is the best representation of it: that is to say, completely blocking any damage.

 

I'm not too interested in discussing whether or not it'd be thematic for Force Field to take on a new mechanic though. Clearly there's plenty of opposing views on that. I don't see it as a priority, especially when there's a matter of actually addressing the pain points in the powerset, rather than looking at reworks to it in the first place. Once those quality of life changes are established and made consensus, then I think would be the time to discuss additional mechanics.

 

 

I think we may just differ in how we define pain points. To me, the Defense in Forc

[Blackfeather]

2 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

I think we may just differ in how we define pain points. To me, the Defense in Forc

Well yeah, that's the thing - I (among some others) overall like the direction that Force Field is currently in. You've expressed that it's not living up to its potential (less pain points, and more inherently 'bad'), and thus are looking for more sweeping changes. That's fine, but I think quality of life improvements ought to have more of a priority, leaving things like new mechanics as secondary discussion.

[oedipus_tex]

Just now, Blackfeather said:

Well yeah, that's the thing - I (among some others) overall like the direction that Force Field is currently in. You've expressed that it's not living up to its potential (less pain points, and more inherently 'bad'), and thus are looking for more sweeping changes. That's fine, but I think quality of life improvements ought to have more of a priority, leaving things like new mechanics as secondary discussion.

 

Actually I hit a key that posted that post mid sentence before I could finish. 🙂

 

What I was going to say is that to me it is a pain point for Force Field that City of Heroes uses a 1d20 crit system, where a roll of 1 is always miss and a roll of 20 is always a hit. That puts limitations on the max effectiveness of a power set that relies mostly on Defense. The available choices for additional mitigation are +Max Hp, +Resistance, and +Absorb. Of those,+Absorb is both the most thematic, and also the least problematic in terms of running into caps that prevent it from being useful on the more heavily armored archetypes.

 

One thing I think is that Force Field was always meant to be among the most heavily armored of power sets. It's not a shift in focus at all for me to picture it with more layered defenses that are representative of the modern game. Remember that when Force Field came out, prior to IOs, a significant part of its appeal was it could put Defense on a Resistance Tank or Scrapper and make them gods. That ability has been largely lost in the current era.

[Blackfeather]

3 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

The available choices for additional mitigation are +Max Hp, +Resistance, and +Absorb. Of those,+Absorb is both the most thematic, and also the least problematic in terms of running into caps that prevent it from being useful on the more heavily armored archetypes.

Well, we've talked about that already - Force Field already does have another form of mitigation through its positional, and soft control powers. As such, I think focusing on those first, as they currently are, would be better. Especially for people who like how the set functions and so on, who do enjoy using said powers, and would like them to be better at what they do.

[Galaxy Brain]

The positional and soft control powers are nice, but they are more dynamic than the shields. How does adding another layer of mitigation alter how FF plays? Youd still apply shields and run the big bubble with just extra layers of comfort.

[Blackfeather]

7 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

The positional and soft control powers are nice, but they are more dynamic than the shields. How does adding another layer of mitigation alter how FF plays? Youd still apply shields and run the big bubble with just extra layers of comfort.

Gameplay wise, that'll depend on implementation. I've got faith in the devs that if an Absorb mechanic is implemented, they'll do so just fine, but I think that it's a discussion for another day.

 

What I'm saying is that that's not a priority at the moment: the defense boosting powers in Force Field are fine as they are due to being fairly simple. What I'm looking for is consensus with how the other powers might be improved. For the most part, Philotic's suggestions are great with that. I've submitted a few of my own on top of that a few pages back.

[Monos King]

On 1/7/2020 at 7:09 AM, Galaxy Brain said:

Being awesome at defense is cool until you look at the meta currently where it gets devalued by many players having Maneuvers + IO builds that boost defense. Adding another layer on top of the defense gives it another edge.

I'm still not feeling it, I like certain powersets being associated with certain effects. I'm faintly against absorb being a heal filler and becoming ubiquitous. While I'm almost positive force field would've been all about absorb if that effect existed with FF's release, it is not; so if it's about increasing it's potency to other players I'd rather it provide measures of defense/regen debuff protection. That would also give it the edge over Ice Dom which it is kind of just a situationally inferior variant of.

Edited January 9, 2020 by monos1
spelling

[gameboy1234]

On 1/7/2020 at 5:01 PM, oedipus_tex said:

City of Heroes uses a 1d20 crit system, where a roll of 1 is always miss and a roll of 20 is always a hit. That puts limitations on the max effectiveness of a power set that relies mostly on Defense.

Just a thinking out loud here, but what if we changed this system?  Let's make Defense work more like the ED system, where you hit a soft cap and your defense is still limited, but adding larger amounts of Defense still gives some incremental improvement, even above 95% protection.

 

Like, softcap Defense at 90%, but each 10% Defense over 100% actually adds 1% to that, until you hit 99.9% Defense.  And remove the 1 in 20 auto hit, at least for players being hit by NPCs.  (Depending, it might be kept for special NPCs, like AVs and Giant Monsters.)

 

The Homecoming Devs might not want to do this for various reasons, but I thought I'd toss it out there.

 

[Blackfeather]

I can only speak for myself, but I do think that the maximum defenses as they are provide plenty of damage mitigation already - avoiding 19 in 20 hits is quite high; if anything, it's harder to build for resistances, to my knowledge. But it's an interesting thought, if not one I'd personally consider to be actionable at present.

[oedipus_tex]

46 minutes ago, Blackfeather said:

I can only speak for myself, but I do think that the maximum defenses as they are provide plenty of damage mitigation already - avoiding 19 in 20 hits is quite high; if anything, it's harder to build for resistances, to my knowledge. But it's an interesting thought, if not one I'd personally consider to be actionable at present.

 

Soft capped mitigation is nice, except that when your main contribution is defense and you exceed the soft cap you actually provide very little. That's the situation Force Field often finds itself in in late game content and why the set is much maligned on 8 man task forces. It's not totally useless. It's still decent for iTrials, although it relies heavily on Power Boost. Without Power Boost its shields are identical to Cold's shields with different secondary effects. The endurance drain and toxic resist in Force Field are nice but rarely critical.

 

That's quite a step backward for a set that was once known for being able to take sets like Fire, Dark and Electric Armor and fortify their Defenses.

 

Adding fuel to the fire, in terms of buffs provided, there is very little difference between Defender Force Field and other versions, despite a Defender's supposed better buff values. Defense is the only stat that is better for Defenders and the soft cap has a cruel effect on it. By mid-game due to the proliferation of Defense buffs, any Force Fielder or Cold character's shields are likely to bring the team to soft cap or close to it. It's true the shields aren't useless, but there are other sets that also provide Defense with much less tradeoff.

 

I will admit I enjoy the big Force Field anti mezz bubble for chaos situations like some iTrials, and that Power Boosted Deflection +Insulation Shield are very effective for the Lambda Trial where players will be running off semi-solo for a portion of the trial.

 

Absorb, though, is where it's at. Absorb will actually benefit the majority of armored characters because even characters at or past soft cap benefit, and if there is an Absorb cap (not sure to be honest altho I assume one exists) the only set that would be close to it would be Bio Armor. 

[Blackfeather]

3 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Soft capped mitigation is nice, except that when your main contribution is defense and you exceed the soft cap you actually provide very little. That's the situation Force Field often finds itself in in late game content and why the set is much maligned on 8 man task forces. It's not totally useless. It's still decent for iTrials, although it relies heavily on Power Boost. Without Power Boost its shields are identical to Cold's shields with different secondary effects. The endurance drain and toxic resist in Force Field are nice but rarely critical.

 

That's quite a step backward for a set that was once known for being able to take sets like Fire, Dark and Electric Armor and fortify their Defenses.

Alright, let's break this down...from what I'm reading, it sounds like one of your issues with Force Field is that in endgame content, it's mainly useful for boosting player defenses. Valid critique (though I take offence to you calling the set 'maligned' - that's your personal evaluation of it, and most definitely not universal), but in that case, I think adding more to Force Field's shield powers at this moment ignores 6 other powers which are in need of improvements, tweaking, and quality of life changes. Philotic provides some nice suggestions on how, and I'd like to think I did so with some others.

6 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Adding fuel to the fire, in terms of buffs provided, there is very little difference between Defender Force Field and other versions, despite a Defender's supposed better buff values. Defense is the only stat that is better for Defenders and the soft cap has a cruel effect on it. By mid-game due to the proliferation of Defense buffs, any Force Fielder or Cold character's shields are likely to bring the team to soft cap or close to it. It's true the shields aren't useless, but there are other sets that also provide Defense with much less tradeoff.

I disagree. I think defense provides plenty of mitigation already - though it's clear that your view on it is different to mine, so we're at an impasse there.

6 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Absorb, though, is where it's at. Absorb will actually benefit the majority of armored characters because even characters at or past soft cap benefit, and if there is an Absorb cap (not sure to be honest altho I assume one exists) the only set that would be close to it would be Bio Armor.

From what I'm reading, the main point that you appear to be making about "why Force Fields should have an Absorb mechanic" appears to be something along the lines of:

• Other characters have high defenses at high levels
• It would benefit other characters to have more health instead, as they already have high defenses

I'm not entirely sold on that reasoning, honestly. Not only does it feel a little reductive (I think that Force Field has plenty of tools to provide support to others - not just its shields; though again in your words, that's something that we disagree with), but it ignores a lot of potential quality of life improvements that Force Field might benefit better from, without needing to implement a new mechanic into the set. Basically a lot of what Philotic's already suggested (and perhaps some of my own). Once those changes are discussed, and their efficacy evaluated (hopefully even implemented), I think we'd be in a position to discuss greater changes to the set.

[Galaxy Brain]

My question then is, why not both?

 

Add an absorb layer that would do much more than increasing the +def would to the shields in the current meta.

 

Make FB and RB do "real" damage on top of their control aspects so that you contribute significantly while the team is safely bubbled.

 

That covers 5 / 9 powers right there,  with PFF being pretty good already that leaves only 3 to look at potentially:

 

Detention Field needs... something. Phase powers are often sorta questionable. 

 

Force Bubble, if changed the way Philotic wants, would be in a weird design space where it does sorta the same thing as repulsion field?

Edited January 9, 2020 by Galaxy Brain